Murder Short 2: Dr. Charles Budd Robinson
Hiya. I wanted to do a short one I had on my list while I make Pillsbury Halloween Ghost Cookies.
I couldn’t find a whole lot on this one but this one stuck with me so I decided to make it short.
Let me start with a little background.
Charles Budd Robinson was born in Nova Scotia in 1871. After receiving his doctorate, he spent five years working at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG). His time at the Botanic Garden gave him the experience necessary to become an economic botanist with the Bureau of Science in Manila. In 1913, he embarked on a botanical exploration of the island of Amboina (now Ambon), in Indonesia.
The following information is from a report in Kew's archives which is a copy of one made by the Assistant Resident of Amboina, Mr van Dissel, to the Resident of Amboina, Mr. Raedt van Oldenbarnevelt.
Here is a bit of a timeline of events.
On December 5th, 1913. Charles started a botanical expedition to the Maluku Islands.
On December 11th, 1913 he was reported missing when he never returned. At this point, the general impression was that there had been an accident, because Dr. Robinson, was in the habit of frequenting mostly remote places.
A few days after he was reported missing van Dissel started to piece together what exactly happened.
It is believed that Dr. Robinson arrived at a remote settlement where he encountered a young boy who had climbed up a coconut tree. When he saw Dr. Robinson standing at the foot of the tree he became frightened. He hurried home and told the people he was being pursued by a European. It didn’t help that he did follow the boy back home. When he arrived at the settlement he asked for a drink and a woman handed him a cup of water. The natives believed him to be a head hunter. Therefore Six people from the village killed him and sank his body into the sea.
In Robinson's obituary, it was written that he was "struck down by the hands of ignorant and savage natives" while "in the peaceful pursuit of his profession and in his zealous endeavors to augment the sum of human knowledge".
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